Who Needs the Classics? Me.

The ancients speak of an era, lost in the mists of time, when ordinary people rode unicorns to the dinner table. Doctors would open Échezeaux and university lecturers Bâtard-Montrachet. Shopkeepers and hacks, those final arbiters of taste, would pick up the vintage and class of a Bordeaux served blind – as you would expect from people who drink the stuff at lunch. Around those same days, Spanish wine suggested sangria, while drinking Italian would practically be a descent to socialism. One knew which were the benchmarks and why. The world had rules.